


Ever the Road Again

by ProwlingThunder



Series: Three Suns [3]
Category: Exalted (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Astronomy: The Broken Mask side effects, Chosen of Journeys, Crossing Paths With Other Sidereals, Gen, Maidens' Secrets, Sidereals, Sidereals Raised In Creation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28671210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: There were people on the road.Few remembered him. He remembered them.Until he didn't.
Series: Three Suns [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/534511





	Ever the Road Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neopilot00](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neopilot00/gifts).



> Albrecht (the Burned Mountain) belongs to Neopilot00 and should not be used without permission.

There were people on the road. 

Few remembered him, and a nervous number of them did manage to smile when they realized he was standing there and then forgot about him not long afterwards, which was largely the way he preferred it. Winey remembered him. That was enough. Though admittedly perhaps it wasn't ideal for people to figure out that there was a bear that was overly cuddly with a person in their midst, which was why largely he went alone, just himself and Winey, and traveled the road on his journey to wherever he happened to be going next. He wasn't entirely sure he cared-- somewhere new was enough. It wasn't about the destination, after all, and where he had come from was mostly mute and gratefully people didn't actually need to know it often.  _ Anywhere else _ was ideal.

But there were people on the road. It was interesting to see what they made of the world around them. Last time it had been a farmer and his sons, with a wagon full of spirits. This time it was a man wrapped in a grey-green cloak, a faded pack slung over his shoulder. He walked easy, steadily, his gait purposeful and his footing sure. Albrecht watched him, he and Winey trailing behind for a time, neither in a hurry nor determined to catch up. The man ahead did not quicken nor slow, either.

Beneath the hem of his cloak, Albrecht saw traces of red.

He kept walking. Eventually, the man ahead paused and shifted his pack. After a moment, he withdrew a sheet of paper-- a map, perhaps, though he wasn't entirely sure until he drew a few steps closer and saw that it was definitely something akin to a map. Not like any he had ever seen, of course, but what use did he have for a map, wandering the wilds? Still, this map was something else. Pale-green parchment, with indigo lines and black strokes at angles that made no sense, and no other identifiers what so ever. A tanned finger traced over them briefly, then the stranger measured a fingerswidth away from something that he wasn't privy to. Nodded, and folded it away.

Because why not, he guessed. Most people he had seen so far didn't bother with maps at all, though he had seen someone with one a few days back, marking where a rockslide had ruined a perfectly good branch off that he didn't know the end location of. Perhaps this stranger only needed a glance at his map as well. Who was Albrecht to say?

When he and Winey moved to stride past him, the stranger fell into step.

They didn't know one another. It didn't matter; he would forget him eventually, likely very quickly, and so conversation was unnecessary in a silence as comfortable as this.

The three of them traveled together for a time. A scarce hour or so from sunset, the stranger stopped again, and this time Albrecht did as well, because the man turned and addressed him, mouth turned up into a smile. "Thank you for the timely company during my journey." Albrecht looked at him. He hadn't been one of Journey's for very long, though he had traveled before and after, and it seemed as if fate had decided he would do that for a long time. But despite it all he didn't know what being a Chosen of Journeys actually  _ meant,  _ and it had been weighing on him a lot since She had spoken to him, and it felt. Strange, to be thanked for it. Not quite as strange as walking next to a person at all, when he had spent years with Winey and the cult only nearby, but strange none the less.

"You're welcome." He meant it. It had been a good walk. 

"I have to leave you here. My journey is over for now." The man's eyes were scarlet, star-studded, and his skin was ruddy river-mud tanned in the sun and warmed, reddened, by mirth and pleasure and good fortune, and there was a flash of two sharp teeth in a smile that seemed so benign. It all stood out a bit; individually they meant nothing. Together they were strange. "I wish you luck in your next engagement."

"Thank you?" Albrecht offered, and then the stranger sketched a very short bow at the waist and stepped off the road, into grasses that had been trampled by many booted feet.

He meets many people on the road. It is not the strangest encounter he's ever had. Honestly, it's rather pleasant. He holds onto the memory of a man by his side who asks no questions of himself, of Winey, who does not flinch away, who is simply there and walks with him for hours.

Days later he will hear of a battle around those parts he traveled through, a conflict with enspelled trees determined to kill any and all life. He will hear of siege weapons useless, soldiers who die strangled of vines and speared through with branches, of a battle narrowly won with fire and salt and fierce prayer, with the help of a tactician who swept in and swept the general's aid aside, for there were no more generals who could command, no more officers who were not gone, whos lives had not been lost or who had deemed themselves to great to spare. Who had fiercely, determinedly, assembled soldiers into fashions of triage and guard and engineers, and turned the woods back on themselves, and won the battle. He will hear about this and go to pray and offer his aid to those who need it, because not many are lucky enough in war to die quickly of their injuries, and those who do not go need medicine and alms and help to recover, and what's not to love, also, of something soft and warm to cuddle? 

Winey is both soft and warm to cuddle. 

Albrecht will think nothing at all of anything strange until he hears of the soldiers pressed into triage and medicine sharing gossip, of a soldier who had come late to the battle, one with brown hair-- no, blond, no, black, no, it was  _ blue-- _ and dark skin-- like a Southerner, one will say, and another will huff and say  _ no, like an Islander, _ and a third will scoff and say  _ neither, he was covered in ash, that poor man, _ and none of them agree on anything except that his skin was darker than those normally found in these parts, so he is likely not a local-- and a manner that is harsh--  _ don't you mean determined, lad? _ and  _ no sir, he was an bastard _ and  _ I don't want to hear any bullshit from either of you about the man who saved our asses. _

He will think nothing at all of it until someone says, next to a man who dies, very softly,  _ Your journey is over for now. It's time for your next battle. _

_ Where did you hear that? _ someone will ask, and the man will say,  _ ah, that's right, you were injured already when the captain arrived, weren't you? That's what he said.  _

_ Where is the captain, anyway? Ashe wants to talk to him about supplies. _

No one can find the captain. No one can agree what he looks like, either.

_ That's  _ when Albrecht will sit back and rest his hand on Winey and think,  _ there's another one like me.  _

_ Hey mister, _ someone will nudge him after the day's work, around the campfire,  _ what do you think? _

_ Isn't it strange, monk,  _ another will ask, drinking at a flask of whiskey,  _ not to remember someone like that? Aren't there ghost stories for that shit? _

_ Have you ever met someone you don't remember?  _ someone will ask him, late the next day, a soldier staring at a squad-mate, utterly mystified.

_ That's  _ when Albrecht realizes, during those talks, telling them of his experiences that they will not remember in a half-hour or so, that he can't give them details of the man he met on the road.

It will bother Albrecht for a few days more until one day, eating a bit of fish Winey had caught, he realizes something incredible. 

He can't but barely remember the man on the road.

He was another Chosen. The man on the road.  _ He was like him. _


End file.
